Learning from Failure

"Qing is your hand, okay?" Qing's mother asked him after healing grandpa Bai.

She knew the pain of miscasting a rune and the explosive amount of recoil it causes to the mage but, she also knew that if he didn't learn the recoil from a lower-tier spell it would be even more painful on the higher-tier spell. When she miscast her first rune-less spell, she felt a sting on her hand, but after that that her hand felt numb for the whole day.

She glanced down and noticed Qing's hands.

"Qing, show me your hand!" Qing's mother ordered him

Qing didn't feel anything with his hand, so he was reluctant to show his mother his hand. 'It was just sweaty,' he thought as he lifted it and noticed how the sweat started flowing, dowing his fingers. He did not know adrenaline in his body had caused him not to feel the pain on his finger.

(A/N: Skip the next paragraph if you don't like blood in novels)

His index finger was bent in the wrong direction, with blood dripping intensely. At first, when it was firing, he felt no pain at all. However, now that he's looking at his messed-up finger, he realized how painful it looked. Even looking at his hand, he pondered on how he messed up on his first rune cast. Did he mess up? Was there too much mana? Did he shoot it too soon? All these thoughts stopped when he could feel his finger again.

Qing couldn't comprehend how such a small mistake could lead to lead to so much destruction. All he did was pour mana into his pointer finger, and now it's…

"IT HURTS, MOM IT HURTS," Qing cried as the pain from his finger started to set in. He quickly ran to his mother, holding his damaged finger out. She started to assess his damaged finger. Why now? Why didn't he feel the pain earlier? When he was playing with his Slimes, a mistake didn't hurt this bad. "I DON'T LIKE IT," Qing mumbled

'This is the recoil of most tier 4 almost tier 5 spells,' Qing's mother thought. She had comprehended tier 5 spells when she was Qing's age. However, she was considered a prodigy amongst prodigies.

'What healing spell should I use in this situation?' Qing's mother wondered. Heal was a general-purpose spell to heal small cuts or minor injuries. However, that could not compete with priests casting runes with divine energy. Different heal spells had different effects on the person receiving the spell.

Qing's mother proceeded to cast two spells simultaneously. One Spell used 水 rune and the other used 火 rune. Qing's mother cast healing and revitalization on his hand. After healing his hand, she used revitalization to get the mana circuits on the finger to build themselves back together. Qing's mother did not expect Qing's first rune to attempt to have such a drastic drawback.

"Don't cry," Qing's mother said as she hugged and stoked his head. This is his first experience with magic and would scar Qing for life if she doesn't do anything to comfort him.

"Zhe Zhe, are you okay? Sniff, " Anya said in a worried tone. She had figured out that if she didn't surprise Qing. This wouldn't have happened to him.

"I'm okay…Sniff..," Qing's eyes watered. "So why are you crying?"

"I'm not… Sniff..,"

"You are," Qing replied.

"No, I'm not,"

"Both of you stop crying!!!," Grandpa Bai yelled at both of them. They have been going at "you are" and "I'm not" for the last 30 minutes now, and he was getting annoyed. "Kids these days."

Qing's hand healed. Anya and Qing held back their tears after being yelled at by Bai.

"Grandpa Bai doesn't know how to comfort children," Qing's mother sternly remarked at his decision to yell at them.

Resolved to fix his mistake, Qing declared to his mother, "I will learn magic."

"I want to learn magic too," Anya replied.

Both of them look at Qing's mother for her approval. Qing's mother was shocked that Qing was still willing to learn magic after experiencing something so traumatic sighed. 'Let's take this lesson a bit slower this time,' Qing's mother noted to herself.

"We'll start with the basics then," Qing's mother noted to them. Qing's mother slowly castes the rune with her hand open instead of the finger gun that she usually uses when she casts a rune. "Usually, people learn their first rune with their hand spread out like this. This type of hand position reduces the recoil in case you fail in casting your rune. I'll show you slowly how the rune should be formed, so watch me," Qing's mother noted to them.

Qing begins to reach out his hand. He took a mental note of his mother's advice on how his hand should be when he's forming a rune.

"Qing, I said watch don't attempt it too soon," Qing's mother said as she noticed Anya and Qing's impatience at learning magic. "In order to learn magic, you need to have patience."

She then deactivates the rune she casts by dissipating the mana into the air. Qing's mother slowly explains, "You can slowly dissipate the mana in the rune into the air. Spreading your hand makes it easier to imagine the mana spreading out and dissipating. As you get more proficient at manipulating their mana, they can use cast from any pose you are comfortable with."